Conversation in Heaven

I often wondered when you’d get here: would I have to wait long or would the time pass quicker than I ever knew it could. I started counting the days so that I would have some sense of time. Before I knew it, I was caught up in seeing everyone who greeted me with the same question as I’m greeting you now. What took you so long?

There were things I needed to take care of. I had to leave knowing everything would be arranged. I needed time to make sure that there were no more loose ends. My life could never have a loose end.

Still I’ve been waiting and I have wanted to tell you so much. There have been things happening up here that no amount of shouting can make the ones down there listen. I was shouting to you a lot, but you never seemed to hear. I watched you move your life from one safe place to the other, without so much as help from anyone else. You appeared strong, but I saw underneath. Here, there’s nothing but crude honesty. Here the best tool you have is sincerity because nothing that was down there can ever matter here.

I’m still new to everything you’re telling me. I will need your help. Down there I would never have been able to ask for your help. Up here it seems natural. I arrived and there were tears streaming down my face as I saw my dear son. My only son, my love. He smiled and opened his arms, wide, he was screaming it’s so good you’re finally here. I never knew such love. I never saw myself cry. Just now.

You finally become who you would have been if times weren’t so hard down there when you lived. Here there’s no fear and there’s no pain. This is love and happiness at its purest and soon you will forget what it was like to live down there. My dear sister, you will see that nothing compares to being here.

I’ve missed you the most. I never told you, but I love you dearly. I watched you over the years, living next to me, cooking and cleaning, coming and leaving and then silently disappearing. I loved your daughter like my own, but I could never show it. I never cried and I never showed love and that left me empty and unwholesome, yearning for simply, a touch. I held my son as he slipped away from me to come here. I held my husband as he vanished from me to come here. After I had no one else to hold, I started making plans to come here too.

Your son and husband have been waiting a long time to see you. We often sit together and reminisce about times spent down there. They miss your cooking and the soft touch of your weary hands that took care of them. In hours of need, you were always there, without a word, you held them. Now they want to take care of you. Their bodies are free of disease and their hearts are pure, just like yours or mine.

What about our mother?

You’ll see her, there’s time. You have to get to know her all over again. She’s not the woman who raised us. She’s not the bitter and broken woman who got beaten by frustration. She’s a free woman. She is free of the burden of six children. She is free of the burden of a husband. She walks around all day long and comes to see her children, and we talk and laugh and tell each other secrets that we never knew we had. She embroiders all of Heaven’s tablecloths and she smiles and sings all the time.

The pain is gone from my fingers. The pain of lifting heavy pots and pans as a little girl.

There is no pain here.

The swelling’s gone from my arms and legs.

There is no pain here.

Your heart is silent.

My dear sister, there is peace here.

I'm just a weary pilgrim trying to find what feels like home

The city’s become familiar. Summer’s how I always knew it. The stuffy nights, the evenings spent sipping cocktails and liquors of all kinds, talking about the future and recapping the past. Friends whom I’ve not seen for months, streets that I’ve not walked on for months. The silky air wrapped itself around my body and held me tight, wishing that I’d never leave again. But without much struggle, I always managed to set myself free from her grip. After the long and sweaty days, the dense nights, I vanished into another realm and left this lovely city alone. I imprinted my being onto the streets and buildings but never allowed myself to be captured. The Danube whispered, the squares and parks yearned, the monuments of greatness murmured and yet I listened not to them, but to the call of a land far away that was home. They all knew that I would not return until the quenching heat descended on this magnificent capital again. Patiently they all waited, until one day I turned up in the middle of the autumn change. I let seasons come and go and now summer’s arrived and it’s unveiling a city before my eyes that I only know too well.

When the city so graciously unmasks itself before me, my only wish is to share it with you. So that you could see the river glittering gently as it travels down towards the warm sea. So that you could see the sun setting behind the hills of Buda on an evening when it’s pouring down with silky rain. So that you could see the trees and flowers proudly parading their colours around. Where are you? Honesty is the best weapon I have and this is the only forum in which I am brave enough to show my weakest part. Here I feel shielded from the incredible harshness of reality. Here everyone that never reads can never laugh.

Will you come and knock on my door, like you did all those years ago? Will you come and find me amongst the haze and the hay like you did all those years ago? For how could you, when you don’t even know me. You’re walking down streets that I’ve never walked on. You’re holding the hands of girls that you never intended to love. But I dream of you. I dream of belonging to you one day. One day when our paths cross finally and my eyes will catch yours and we will forever be in love. Even if now we’re roaming the world oblivious to each others’ existence, I know that one day, all that was unimportant will suddenly gain significance. Then I will read the poems you had made for me. Then I will listen to the songs you had sung for me. Then you will read the pages I had written for you. And once I love you completely and you love me completely all that’s around us will start to make sense. Life’s little glories will seem worthwhile and the glimmering sunshine will bring smiles onto our faces as we’re watching the streaming river tumble downwards to the warm warm sea.

My angel, you will hold me and whisper gently “stay”.

Random notes on the happenings of this week

FIX YOU. If asked which pop group I disliked the most, those who know me well know that I will say: coldplay. And they will also know that apart from some animated gibberish about how they’re irritating because of their sense of fashion, their lack of tension in their music and the fact that they’re Anglo Saxon, I would not be able to coherently reason my choice of dislike. But the seed of the dislike was planted and now out of some silly stubbornness, I am unable to appear more open to the talents of coldpaly’s band members. The coming lines therefore can seem like sacrilege or the denouncing of my beliefs all in one.
There is one coldplay song that has got me. Today was not the first time I’ve heard it, but it was the first time I really heard it. The song was lying low in my brain somewhere. It was waiting for the right time to surface. All day long I was humming “the lights will guide you home”. I wasn’t even sure what the words meant or if they bore any significance, but I hummed and wrote the words on a post it and stuck it on my desk to remember. All of a sudden upon hearing the song again, I got it. I finally could understand and appreciate the tenderness of this soul ripping song. I understood the willingness of it to show the soul as a dartboard for all you cynics to take a shot at. I understood the amazing richness of emotion that surfaced with a simple little line. This emotion and sincerity, the fragile truth, the confessed weakness, the broken spirit, they’re all coming alive with one line. The lights will guide you home. Because home is what we all crave and home is what most of us never have. Home that is a haven. Home that is another human being with compassion and love. Home that IS love. Home where everyone is safe. Home that is a shelter from the evil because this world is not a nice place. The twinkling lights will always be there and they will guide you home; all you have to do is follow them. Just start walking and once you’ve gained momentum, the tears will dry on your cheeks and you will see, you will ultimately see, you will arrive and be a part of: a home. The lights will guide you home…

FORCA. The two things I struggle with the most are love and home. Maybe there is only one love for everyone. Maybe the real love is that person who saw to your core. Maybe it’s that person who sees your all, who loves your dark and who will always be your home. Because love is so abstract in my life, home can only be abstract as well. But if home is peace, then I know home. If home is love, then I know love. I know love because there’s been a person in my life who has taught me all I know, who has shown me all I see, and who has made me understand the simplicity of home and love and peace. My mom. To her, I owe everything: to her sensitivity and her sincere words. She says: “you’re my one success” and with an air of ease she proceeds to make the world bend backwards just for her. She resurrects broken down ideas and makes crutches for people who grew tired of life's scars. Her tenderness I was never able to imitate. I say with the most love: forca. If there was a point where you thought turning back was your only option, that point’s long gone. We’re all walking next to you, just an arms length away. Reach out and we’ll be there. We’re your safety net..we’re your lights that will guide you home. And teach me of honest things. Teach me to be better. Teach me to love more those who hurt me. Teach me to never be afraid. Teach me to have the love in my eyes like you. Teach me all you know so one day I can see the light that will guide me home.

I almost forgot

I almost didn’t remember what it was all about. For a moment, I seemed to have lost the focus of my vision. Only for a split second, I was looking elsewhere and almost didn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to feel. I thought myself lost and rekindled with the newfound meaning, the newly discovered truth that I need to hang onto to keep myself sane. I realised that whilst I was resting my eyes on pastures more green, I was loosing sight of what I had built for myself. I looked into the distant horizon and was almost screaming from the uncertainty of a winding road ahead of me. I lost the one thing that I had made sure stayed with me for stability. That dream, that idea, that nurturing thought of a future so securely fastened to unreality.

But the image that needs to hang above my eyes for guidance and counselling, is no other than the image of a woman superior in mind and talent to the one I’m likely to grow into. The balloon that I’m desperately trying to catch seems to be filled with helium and flies ever higher. In it there’s a woman who I long to be. She is smart and sophisticated, talented and strong. She’s the kind of woman who through an immense amount of sincerity and sensitivity comes out head strong and vigilant after the many fights for her freedom. She’s independent and she lives for what she loves and what she loves is what she aims for. There is nobody she needs. Men accompany her on her journey not out of some sense of duty or because of a helpless cry she whimpers at the dead of night, but because she chooses to tolerate them. They neither add nor take away from her. They are merely fellow travellers who share a path at one point or another. Love is what keeps her from tipping over the edge. Her heart finds love wherever she goes: support from friends who become rocks so she can build on them. No fickle emotion can ever be good enough to take a place in her heart. This is do…or die.

Still, my unhappiness like Bukowski’s widow haunts each empty seat on the Ferris wheel. I’m always content and have become really good acting like I live on the golden middle ground, but the truth could not be further from reality. If I am the most balanced individual on the face of this planet, then we need more court jesters like myself. My inside is gasping with holes. My inner simplicity is tangled with the confused nature of a woman in a crisis. I am neither lonely nor surrounded by crowds. I am neither happy nor wearing a crown of gloom. What I am is simply lost. I am a soul that chose the path of uncertainty. I’ve left the One when I realised I could get away with not keeping in touch. He will surely want to have a long chat before He lets me in to his heavenly abode. I will regret every unwhispered prayer. I will regret every unopened page in His Book. I will regret every malicious thought; still He’s a friend I neglect.

I was looking too closely. I almost lost sight of the future I want to have. Just some ideas to share. Just an apartment to have. Just the single word of a man blinded by the desire to change.

I will be all right. I’ll be better than all right. One day I will have the independence. I will have my words to share. I will have coherency and I may even get to be the woman I so desperately wish to be.